Day: July 6, 2012

Men pretending to have homosexual intercourse, discussions of “kinky sex,” hats with plastic testicles and cross-dressing: It was all part of an official California public-school district retreat, a lawsuit says.

School administrators from the Lake Elsinore Unified School District have participated in the annual retreats since 2008, according to court documents.

The Press-Enterprise, a newspaper in Riverside, Calif., reported that an assistant principal has had enough, claiming she was the victim of sexual harassment, discrimination and a hostile work environment.

Kathryn Jones, 42, said the retreats were not optional; administrators were required to attend the events held at Coachella Valley hotels, where district leaders allowed and participated in the risqué behavior.

“You just shake your head at something like this,” Andrew Rosenberry, Jones’ attorney, told the paper. “The conduct is so outrageous.”

According to the Press-Enterprise, district spokesman Mark Dennis declined to comment, but school-board member Jeanie Corral confirmed that she had witnessed the events described in the lawsuit. However, she said she was surprised by the allegations because the incidents didn’t upset her.

“There was nothing that I found offensive,” Corral said.

But Jones told the Press-Enterprise the sexual humor at the retreats was distasteful.

“It doesn’t belong in a workplace,” she said.

According to the lawsuit, Jones complained about the retreats several times – and then she was demoted in 2011 from associate principal at Temescal Canyon High School to assistant principal at Luiseno Elementary School. Jones, a lesbian, also claims discrimination was a factor in her demotion.

The report states that Jones” supervisor at Temescal Canyon had given her outstanding evaluations and called her the “moral compass” of the school. After she sued, she was offered her current position as assistant principal at Elsinore High School in Wildomar.

In 2008, Jones claimed the retreat featured cross-dressing skits.

In 2010, the “Wizard of Oz” theme required administrators to dress as characters from the story – including male Assistant Superintendent Alain Guevara dressing as Dorothy.

In 2011, male district employees pretended to have sex with one another and act surprised that they had been caught in a video shown at the retreat, the lawsuit alleges.

According to the Press-Enterprise report, “Another video showed Guevara lying on a table with someone pretending to insert a probe for a colonoscopy, Jones said. The video then cut to footage from an actual colonoscopy, she said.”

Yogi Berra said that when you come to a fork in the road, take it. When supposed-conservative Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. came to a judicial conservative-liberal fork in the road, he veered left.

With Chief Justice Roberts‘ vote to save Obamacare, I was reminded of what my dad told me more than 50 years ago: Never trust a man who wears a black robe. He might be naked under there.

Unlike other conservatives, I don’t care if his vote to save Obamacare turns into a cash cow for the Mitt Romney’s presidential political machine and galvanizes the GOP. There are some things more important than politics and elections. Striking down un-American, Constitution-violating Obamacare is one of them.

Had Chief Justice Roberts voted along with Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia like everyone expected, Obamacare would have been struck down by the Supreme Court. That would have put even more wind in the sails of the Romney campaign.

The bottom line is that Chief Justice Roberts‘ traitor vote will ensure more monumental spending and wasted taxes and put almost 15 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) under one of the world’s most bureaucratic, ineffective, incompetent and grossly expensive systems ever devised by man: our out-of- control federal government.

Chief Justice Roberts squandered the opportunity to restore judicial, financial and legislative sanity to a government that by any sane person’s standards is insane and addicted to centralized federal control of our lives.

Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War. Our Founding Fathers’ concept of limited government is dead.

Because of the chief justice’s vote, Fedzilla just burped and is now prepared to gobble up even more of our tax dollars, more of our GDP and limit even more opportunity in the private sector.

Chief Justice Roberts‘ opinion was that Obamacare was a tax, not a mandate under the Commerce Clause to purchase a product, and that Congress can levy any tax it wants.

As I recall, the president and the government’s very own attorney who argued the case before the Supreme Court said that Obamacare was not a tax. Fascinating, Mr. Chief Justice, that you legislated from the bench that Obamacare is a tax.

Rick Santelli, the man commonly credited with starting the Tea Party, criticized U.S. leaders Friday for spending more time coming up with excuses for why they can’t seem to fix the economy than developing actual solutions.

“Today we’re going to discuss the jobs report,” he said, referring to the Labor Department’s latest jobs data, “80,000 — a far cry from the type of number we need. But let’s really dig down into the solutions, priorities, and excuses. Right now, I really do feel like Nero. I feel as though many of the leaders in the country look at these numbers and they come up with excuses.”

He continued, arguing that instead of actually addressing the U.S.’ economic woes, the country’s leaders have invested more time in blaming President George W. Bush and claiming that they simply didn’t know how bad things were.

“Here’s the issue the way I see it,” Santelli said, “in 2008, both candidates — Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama — they knew things weren’t good. They were hooked in on everything because we had a lame duck president. They watched the crisis unfold before their very eyes.”

“When it comes to solutions, I want to see some programs that don’t blame the last guy,” he added.

We’ve told you before about government regulations hampering home Bible studies, but this story is even more pervasive, perplexing and complicated than the others. Michael Salman, who lives in Phoenix, Ariz., has been sentenced to a startling 60 days in jail, given a $12,180 fine and granted three years probation for refusing to stop hosting Bible studies at his home. Why, you ask? He‘s apparently in violation of the city’s building code laws.

City officials claim that he’s running an operation that is reminiscent of a home church — but without the required permits. And according to Fox’s Todd Starnes, Phoenix court documents show that he violated 67 codes. Unless the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals grants an emergency injunction, he will be jailed as early as next week.

The House Rules Committee will convene in an expedited meeting on Monday to consider a measure to repeal President Obama’s signature health care reform law, according to a statement from the panel’s spokesman.

Under committee rules, Monday’s business is considered an “emergency” meeting because a hard copy of the introduced measure must be available to members of the panel at least 24 hours before a meeting. While the text is available online now, the bill is not expected to be introduced until Monday, said committee spokesman Doug Andres.

Last week, Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s office said the vote to repeal the health care law would be set for July 11.